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Aristotle – How to live a good life
- nj5rq 2y ago[flagged]
- Asymo 2y agoThank modern philosophy, which unfortunately discarded all previous philosophical knowledge
- pyinstallwoes 2y agoNothing new since Plato
- tim333 2y agoThey discovered stuff but anything which gets solved is then called science.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoIt absolutely did not come on lol. Where do you get this stuff.
- Asymo 2y agoNietzsche, in his book Beyond Good and Evil, says that Plato is the beginning of a great decline, responding with his tragic view: 'And who said that man is capable of knowing the truth? [...a long waste of time follows...]'. I recommend looking into the discussion of universals, as I understand that much of the disagreement stems from this point.
- loughnane 2y agoI think knowledge isn’t something that accumulates—each generation discards some old things and discovers some new. The old stuff is still there of course, but it’s not a part of the societal discourse or understanding and so is more inert information than knowledge.
- Eumenes 2y agoI prefer these over the 1000th blog post about how SQLite is awesome (it is)
- nj5rq 2y agoThere are so many good (non-mainstream) tech articles to share. A lot of them are not repetitive. A lot are shared here every day. Yet, for some reason, people decide to share these self-help low effort articles on HN. Just make some "news.selfhelp.how2behappy.com" website. (No offense to you, I just don't get it)
- z3t4 2y agoMy empirical study of happy people comes down to these three points: * Have low expectations * Enjoy simple things * Don't care too much
- autonomousErwin 2y agoI think it's fundamentally important to care deeply about some things e.g. your craft. As you tend to find joy when you're deep in flow state.I'd also add: * Don't argue with people on the internet You'd be inherently happier, also: * Enjoy irony when you can
- somenameforme 2y agoArguing is enjoyable and helps build the foundation of your beliefs IMO. Where people go wrong is expecting the other person to be converted to your beliefs or swayed by your argument. Even given the exact same data, evidence, and information, people can naturally and logically come to different conclusions. And ultimately, people will choose to believe (or not) what they want.
- autonomousErwin 2y agoThere's really something quite magical when you're having a debate with someone with vastly different views but they're reasonable and you both find common ground. Probably a good indication of partner compatibility - I don't think it's healthy if you and your partner have exactly the same views.
- graemep 2y agoIt certainly reflects my experience. A lot of my friends I people I will have arguments, frequently on topics that make people emotional and on which we have very different views: politics (including Brexit!), religion, gender identity, and so on. On the other hand that was not true of my EX-wife.
- AntoniusBlock 2y ago
- vasco 2y ago> 2400 years ago Aristotle found out how to be happy. Citation needed > First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function. Something can be good or even the best without being unique, in fact we can only say things are good relatively to other things in a similar category, otherwise we cannot know. Good or bad only makes sense by comparison and uniqueness is rarely the factor. > what is unique about humans: We have a soul that thinks and feels Have you ever interacted with a dog for more than 30 seconds? Philosophers are very good at telling others how to be happy while living miserable lives.
- pavlovsgods 2y agoMay we stand judged by our own actions and words and not by SEO posts portraying them :p Aristotle is well worth reading for someone interested in philosophy, but he himself did not claim to have discovered how to be happy (he thought of himself as explicating and systematizing what everyone thinks about happiness), his notion of telos (poorly translated as 'function') is not subject to your rightly raised objection, and, though he did believe that humans are distinguished from non-human animals by possession of a rational faculty, he thought we shared with non-human animals the capacity to feel.
- marginalia_nu 2y agoYou're splitting hairs and attacking choices of words that were not made by Aristotle, but the author in trying to summarize Aristotle. You need to put away this sort of sophistry if you want to engage with philosophy. Like > > what is unique about humans: We have a soul that thinks and feels > Have you ever interacted with a dog for more than 30 seconds? You're engaging with half a sentence. The important part is thinks. Aristotle and Plato broke down the human soul into three parts. A hungry part that we share with plants, animals and other humans, an emotional part that we share with animals, and a rational "thinking" part that humans alone possess (though later thinkers like Pico della Mirandola suggest we share it with the angels). https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/psyche.htm https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/psyche.htm
- vasco 2y ago
- quonn 2y ago> First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function. Like a nuclear weapon?
- pavlovsgods 2y agoAristotle's conception of the goodness of a thing (which is not convincingly conveyed by the author) is essentially normatively neutral; a good knife qua knife for Aristotle is one that cuts well as a good nuclear weapon is one which is destructive. Using a nuclear weapon might not be good but just as a gun might be well-designed without being well-used I don't think it is too normatively concerning to be able to identify something as being a good example of its kind (a well-designed nuclear weapon), though I could be wrong!
- johanbcn 2y agoIf blasting other nations is your thing, then sure, why not?
- quonn 2y agoYeah, and that's why I'm doubting this definition is very useful. Aristoteles should also have gotten a chicken plucked on the market square ...
- arethuza 2y agoThe US is apparently retaining components of some large H-bomb designs for "potential planetary defense purposes" - wouldn't that be a "good" function? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb#Role https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb#Role
- somenameforme 2y agoThe author was referring to good as in quality, not the good/evil dichotomy.
- throw0101d 2y ago>> First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function. > Like a nuclear weapon? If the device in question sets off uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction, then yes, it is good for its purpose as a nuclear weapon. You are asking/implying: is the nuclear weapon's purpose good (in the first place)? Something can be good for its purpose (e.g., electric chair [0]), but the good/badness of that purpose is a separate question. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair
- rubymamis 2y ago> We cannot study rules for proper behaviour. Instead, we must train our character through habituation to find the right mean appropriate to the circumstances. > Are we born with those virtues? > No. Well, Aristotle also speaks about "starting points" and claims there's a great weight for "habituation" as much as those "starting points" (your genetics, your talents, your environment growing up). So that's important also to say. "People like that [with the right upbringing] either already have, or can easily grasp, [the right] principles. If neither of those applies to you... well, Hesiod says it best: Best of them all is a man who relies on his own understanding. Next best, someone who knows how to take good advice when he hears it. So, if you're clueless yourself, and unwilling to listen to others, taking to heart what they say - then, sorry, you're pretty much hopeless." - Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Chapter 4, 1095b
- GTP 2y agoMaybe the first category needs some explanation. I have a realtive that relies on his own understanding... Way too much, to the point that he assumes to be right too often and so is mostly unable to listen to advice. Does he fall in the first or in the last category? I would put him in the last, but note that the heart of the problem is relying to one own understanding without considering the possibility of being wrong sometimes.
- dcre 2y agoThe key to understanding this properly is that the “understanding” in the first category is taken to be right, good understanding, which by stipulation your relative does not have. When Aristotle means someone’s own opinion, he uses a different word like “doxa”, how things appear to people, which is translated as belief or opinion.
- rubymamis 2y agoExactly. The quote from Hesiod comes after mentioning people with "with the right upbringing", that is, people whose "understanding" is already sound.
- pvinis 2y agoOK but the animations are amazing!!
- simonmysun 2y agoAristotle lives in the old versions of the Earth. The outdated concepts may not stand up to modern thinking, but are sufficient for dealing with a simple life. Unfortunately, most people's lives are not simple.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- marginalia_nu 2y agoI think in many parts most people's lives are not simple because they engage with them through muddled and complex intellectual frameworks using 16 letter words to explain 3-5 letter word concepts. You'd be surprised how much modern life begins to make sense viewed through the framework of antique philosophy.
- bluetomcat 2y agoAncient societies were different. A male citizen from the aristocracy could lead a slow leisurely life, gathering with like-minded citizens on the agora and talking for hours, enjoying the finer things in life like wine and sporadic sexual contacts, taking part in sports competitions. The "ancient wisdom" we consume now is coming from that segment of the Greek and Roman societies.
- marginalia_nu 2y agoI don't think that invalidates their conclusions. There's also Epictetus. That man can hardly be accused of being a spoiled aristocrat.
- bluetomcat 2y agoIt discredits them. Imagine the modern version – a privileged upper-middle class person with an expensive upbringing and education talking about stoicism ala Ryan Holiday and hard work. Their version of stoicism is most likely about not worrying of the fluctuations of stock values. An economically disenfranchised man's stoicism is about seeing their health degrade.
- samirillian 2y agoI just really liked this. There’s a lot of wisdom in Aristotle even if you don’t accept his entire system. For example, in his politics he says mechanics are not capable of practicing virtue. An interesting claim!
- HPsquared 2y agoMechanics?
- codegrappler 2y agoMechanics in Ancient Greece meant the study of mechanical physics. So essentially scientists. If your focus is on the material world (material here being ‘matter’ not consumer goods) then you necessarily see science as a higher aim than virtue.
- HKH2 2y ago> For example, in his politics he says mechanics are not capable of practicing virtue. An interesting claim! Well, people often find it very difficult to separate explanations from justifications.
- ivl 2y agoI'm actually very much in agreement with that point. The world is what it is. A factual observation is just that! But I think it would be better said that while practicing mechanics one should not be trying to practice virtue. A moral position will push out a factually accurate one if you aren't willing to ignore your views when assessing something.
- geye1234 2y agoHe may well mean a mechanic qua mechanic is not capable or practising virtue -- not a mechanic qua human being. The ancients tended to predicate formally where we predicate materially. When they said 'a mechanic can't practise virtue', they didn't mean every man who is a mechanic, which is what we would mean. They meant every mechanic in so far as he is a mechanic. At least this is the tendency -- I don't know if it applies to this particular case. In this case, it would mean he can't practise virtue, at least not complete virtue, through being a mechanic, but he could in other areas of his life. Jacques Maritain's Introduction to Philosophy explains this helpfully.
- garyclarke27 2y agoNice Article, always good to be reminded of the fundamentals - Love the Graphics
- cauliflower99 2y agoGreat article. Anybody know how can I make graphics like this?
- aramndrt 2y agoThe most recent article on the blog likely holds the answer to your question. (Disclaimer: I did not read it.) https://ralphammer.com/a-quick-beginners-guide-to-animation/ https://ralphammer.com/a-quick-beginners-guide-to-animation/
- w10-1 2y agoIt's good to try to boil Aristotle down to some topological order, because it is latent there. But to get the order right, this presentation needs some background in the Greek terms Aristotle is using. E.g., focus on the first few lines of the Nichomachean Ethics, about all beings having a good for themselves; that pulls in his metaphysics, some logic, and orients you to the argument structure. (Personally, I'm not fond of the moving images.)
- loughnane 2y agoI agree. Though the images are engaging to look at they don’t immediately help my understanding.
- Ahmed_rza 2y agoit feels good when reading but it's not easy when applies to real life
- eleveriven 2y agoThat’s a common experience
- Almondsetat 2y agoThe very beginning of this post contains a critical passage. What makes a good knife? Of course, a good knife is a knife that cuts well. But what does it mean to cut well? Just the sharpness of the blade? What about grip comfort? And balancing? And stickiness? And weight? And what about the thing being cut? Can a knife cut everything well? As you can see, we are already dead in our tracks, as asking what makes a knife good is basically on the same level of complexity of asking the same thing about a human, and this is why ancient philosophers, many of whom didn't really explore nuance, should be critically studied, without falling for simplistic "this is my hero" behavior
- cannonpr 2y agoWhile I can largely accept this criticism, I’d also like to point out that it might be missing the spirit of a lot of ancient philosophers historical context. For starters a lot of their books and texts have been lost so we aren’t sure for several what nuance has been lost. Secondarily a lot of that nuance you describe was meant to be explored via shared dialogue (the Socratic method) between pupil and teacher, until a common and nuanced understanding of the topic was achieved, not just studied out of a book, which was enormously expensive and not at all available to most people in the first place. I’d largely view their teachings as a starting point upon which to build a dialogue and nuanced understanding with a long since dead teacher.
- Almondsetat 2y agoWhile I can largely accept this criticism, the author of the blog post is not partaking in the discourse, but is instead reporting a summarized version of what Aristotle, maybe, said, presenting it as a definitive guide. This is why I originally said that more ancient authors need to be carefully studied, since they didn't have the means of explaining themselves and correcting their ideas through numerous and verbose publications.
- GeoAtreides 2y ago[flagged]
- harimau777 2y agoIt seems to me that this either underemphasizes the importance of happiness or assumes that happiness will be an inevitable byproduct of virtue; even if we define happiness very broadly to include things like "satisfaction" or a "sense of purpose". Part of me suspects that may be because Aristotle was likely upper class and therefore already had success and/or wealth. I'm not sure that I think his arguments work for people who are suffering or struggling to get by.
- resource_waste 2y ago[flagged]
- pnut 2y agoHappiness and sadness are emotions - inherently transient. I have actually thought that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was aan error, and should have been "life, liberty, and the pursuit of fulfilment"
- lo_zamoyski 2y agoHappiness is not an emotion. That was the whole point of the article.
- HKH2 2y agoYes, pursuing happiness is shortsighted.
- dcre 2y agoThe article says directly: “One might even suffer greatly and still live a virtuous—that is: a good—life. When Aristotle speaks of a “happy” life, he means a fulfilled or flourishing life rather than a pleasurable one.” Suffering certainly does make it harder to be virtuous, but you can interpret that not as disregarding the poor but as giving even more justification for orienting society toward satisfying everyone’s basic needs.
- Xen9 2y ago
- resource_waste 2y agoI read nicomachean ethics, can I skip the article? My criticism of Aristotle: Living the golden mean, like a happy person isnt going to help when your country is invaded. This is my number 1 criticism of Temperance as a virtue. There is a reason we grind in college so hard, there is a reason why at some points in our career we work absurd hours and gain weight/become unhealthy. Aristotle's golden mean (or Temperance) does not account for this. "But Wisdom would say that this is acceptable to sacrifice health at points" Does it? How do you weight these virtues as one better than another? Calling for some perfect Platonic form that answers all these questions correctly is a bit of a cop-out.
- lordleft 2y agoThere's a peril in translating the Greek word that is often used by Aristotle and the other Virtue Ethicists -- eudaimonia -- into happiness. Happiness in English often maps to a transient & discrete emotional state, whereas eudaimonia is a much more expansive conception of flourishing and fulfillment that is not as simply as "feeling" happy or joyful all the time. Indeed, in virtue ethics, it is sometimes possible to endure hardship and feel quite negative emotions while experience eudaimonia (at least in the Stoic version of this branch of philosophy).
- hasbot 2y agoFully defining terms (i.e. eudaimonia) for a modern audience is essential. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia
- geye1234 2y agoPrudence is the virtue that allows us to see what to do in the infinite and unique situations that present themselves to us each day. This will always and everywhere mean sacrificing a lesser good for a greater one. This can be something as trivial as saying "I choose to forego the pleasure of this ice cream for the sake of my health", or something as life-changing as "I choose to give up this career because it's making me unhealthy." The good choice is always what leads to 'happiness', which is perhaps better translated as beatitude or fulfillment. Sometimes choice this will result in a feeling of sadness. This is not opposed to 'happiness'/fulfillment/beatitude as Aristotle means it, which is not a feeling. Also, you don't weigh the virtues against each other. They work in harmony. You weigh one action against another.
- pmzy 2y agoI've never seen anything like this article. True, simple art. Really well executed. I can't say that I agree fully with it, but knowing the virtues you want to abide to is a good idea.
- hasbot 2y ago> Aristotle says that humans have a capacity to be good, but it is up to us to develop our character. This is best achieved through study and habit. Cool. So, then I just draw the rest of the owl? I have no idea where to begin to develop my character.
- mattgreenrocks 2y agoStoics believe in the four cardinal virtues: courage, justice, wisdom, and moderation. I think they're a good starting point for character development, and a lifetime of work on their own.
- mbivert 2y agoWell, > This is best achieved through study and habit. Probably the most efficient way is to study "good" authors, and to emulate "good" models of virtue. The second section of OP already gives some practical tips: > A good character can handle emotions properly. > We do that by finding the right mean between two extremes: > Courage is the right mean between cowardice and recklessness. > Temperance is the right mean between gluttony and abstinence. Different "good" models of virtue will often independently reach similar conclusions: handling of emotions is notoriously valued in Buddhism; avoiding extremes is close to Confucius's doctrine of the mean[0], of which Jesus's "turning the other cheek" could be one practical implementation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_Mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_Mean
- HKH2 2y agoWell, you have decisions right in front of you. Character is made through action.
- hasbot 2y agoWhat actions are you or have you taken to improve your character?
- kbelder 2y agoAll those times you are confronted with choices that boil down to "I should do this, but I want to do that..." Do what you should do. Many or most of our choices that matter are that simple, but we work really hard to confuse ourselves, to justify and rationalize the choice we want, because that's what we want. If our choices are difficult because it really is honestly difficult to tell what the right thing is, then it's not a moral flaw to be mistaken.
- lo_zamoyski 2y agoOne thing you have to notice is the centrality of the nature of a thing, which is to say its telos, or end. Fulfillment is, after all, defined by our nature; it is a matter of proceeding from potential to actuality, as determined by our nature. What is good advances a person according to one's nature (in our case, human nature), what is bad acts against it. Telos, or finality, also gives morality its proper and objective ground: what is morally right or wrong follows, ultimately, from one's nature. Since we are humans, we are therefore persons, which is to say animals who can understand their actions and choose between apprehended alternatives, and therefore moral agents. We must therefore choose to act in accord with our nature as free and rational agents, which is to say according to right reason. Our rationality allows us to tackle the question of what it means to be human and to therefore determine what is good. A tragedy of the crudeness of materialism is that it obliterates telos, and in doing so, destroys the only possible objective ground for morality and the good. Married to philosophical liberalism, morality becomes a mystery cult rooted in desire that evades explanation. Yyou cannot square the existence of desires--which can be good or bad, in accord with reason, or deviant or depraved--with a purely materialist universe; even Descartes had to tack on the disembodied ghost of the Cartesian mind to account for all sorts of phenomena. So you end up with an irrational gnosticism as a result. But the fact of the matter is that even the most mundane varieties of efficient causality presuppose telos, as telos is not the same as conscious intent (which is a particular variety), but fundamentally, the ordering of a cause toward an effect. The only reason efficient causality is intelligible at all is because the relation between cause is ordered toward an effect by virtue of the nature of the thing, and not arbitrarily related. Striking a match predictably results in fire, not nothing, nor the appearance of the Titanic or whatever. We are seeing an increased, if modest interest in broadly Aristotelian thought (which some refer to as "Neo-Aristotelian"), however. As the materialist dinosaurs pass from this earth, fresh blood is willing to reexamine the nihilistic, dehumanizing, materialist dogmas of the last two or three centuries. It was never the case that materialism overthrew the prior intellectual tradition by discrediting it. Rather, it began with the perilous decision to "start from scratch". Putting aside the dubiousness of the notion, what we can expect from starting from scratch is a repetition of the same errors. There are eerie similarities between modern ideas and the pre-Socratic philosophers, for example, of which Aristotle was very much aware and to which he was responding.
- throwaway984393 2y ago[dead]
- moose44 2y agoThis was a great read.
- tbirdny 2y agoJust looking at the page and all the animation is fun. It looks nice, but trying to read it with all the distraction is very difficult for me.
- borski 2y agoFascinating. I have ADHD and the “distraction” meant I could read it super fast and understand it with no issues. This sounds fun to try side by side.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mistercheph 2y agoDon't read blog post that completely misrepresents Aristotle, just read Aristotle: https://www.amazon.com/Aristotles-Nicomachean-Ethics-Philosophical-Library/dp/1585100358/ref=sr_1_8?crid=2FE9I649TCGLP https://www.amazon.com/Aristotles-Nicomachean-Ethics-Philoso...
- theusus 2y agoIt's pretty congruent to Stoic principles.
- perihelion_zero 2y ago[flagged]